Augt-Vot Consortium
"A Merger of Wealth" - Overview The Augt-Vot Consortium is a small power formed by a conglomeration of various corporations, institutes, and technology firms united under the pursuit of interstellar wealth. In pursuit of this goal, the Consortium is willing to conduct business with all galactic entities, and often times will disregard potential consequences in favor of the acquisition of greater and greater riches. Government At the apex of the Consortium's hierarchy is the Board, which is a gathering of three corporations deemed "essential" to the existence of the Consortium, and four auxiliary chairmembers, elected through a yearly auditing to assess wealth. The top four firms are granted Board status, and the kickbacks that come from it. Positions on the Board are not chosen based on race, sex, sexuality, or creed-- instead, the only obstacles is one's own wealth and personal connections. Wealth bracketing and political power As a general rule, the political power of a member-company of the Consortium can be measured through its bracket rating. After all, money is ''power. Brackets are determined through monthly or annual audits conducted by supercomputers and an independent arm of the Consortium. The ''Corpora System The Corpora (singular: corpus) is the method by which the AVC governs its territories, usually applied to planets. The ownership of a Corpus varies. It can be between A or B-- or even C-- bracket companies, and regardless of owning company, they are typically equipped with the powers of a dictatorial planetary regime, however the method by which the power is harnessed and applied varies between corpora. Chartered Corpora Charters, in essence, are open bid contracts where various companies in the Consortium are able to bid on contracts put out by the Board for a variety of reasons, such as a natural avoidance by market forces, financially unrewarding business, or plain negative cultural association. In theory, these arrangements call the best and the most equipped to the operation of a chartered corpora, however, it isn't always the case. Culture "Religion" Religion in Augt-Vot is blurry. Officially, multiple Board makeups have condemned religion and, in fact, ban its public practice. However, as some things are, definitions were vague and undefined, and left much grey area. In this 'vacuum' of spirit and faith, a minority individuals have more or less partaken in wealth-worship; the worship of the acquisition, spending, and stockpiling of wealth. The tenets of this 'religion' are loose and vague, and often times it is up to the interpretation of the individual practitioner to outline what they will do to practice the faith. The most common practices often include buying extravagant things, engaging in decadent behaviors, and showing off. Sacred Ponzi schemes and MLM schemes are frowned upon concepts but have found their way into the folklore of this 'religion' due to its pervasiveness and the desperation (or ignorance) of low-level individuals. Entertainment Brutality, speed, and violence are all applicable terms to sports in the Consortium. Entertainment, however, is almost unilaterally enjoyed by the ultra-rich and well-off. This has caused most entertainment to tailor to the needs of this small clientele, as the working populace has no time to spare for something so unproductive as watching someone else die a horrible death at the hands of phages. Examples of entertainment in the AVC: Impact of native microbial state; 'macro-jealousy' Since the first colonial-individuals formed, the Augite jealously of the bigger, united, and stronger inviduals has persisted into the spacefaring commercial entity of the Consortium, albeit on more muted levels. After all, why couldn't the Augites have just evolved a little bit more, and became true macroorganisms like their cosmic neighbors? Why couldn't they be of one body and one mind, instead of millions of bodies creating a million dissenting minds and ideas? While this may form a majority of Augite thinking, divisions have arisen in recent years due to the advance in technology allowing for colonial individuals to use singular bodies crafted for them-- although, this doesn't exactly solve the one body and one mind, instead making it into a "one million minds in one body". Nevertheless, the impact of the macro-jealously has yet to reveal itself, although nothing notable in the intergalactic scale of things has been noted. Category:Factions